Comrades, friends, and brothers
by NCR Ranger
Summary: In the wake of the Fold weapon's destruction, Cooper reflects on what he and a certain Vanguard Titan went through during their struggle against the might of the IMC.


Cooper's log.

Latest Entry.

* * *

 _Right now, I should be happy. Heck, ecstatic even._

 _Because ? 40 million souls on the planet Harmony were saved today due to the combined efforts of the Frontier Militia, and the 6-4s . The IMC took it on the chin, and they're bound to be reeling from this for quite some time. If nothing else, we've robbed them of their most potent weapon, the one that was meant for Harmony. We kept the playing field level._

 _We can still win this fight._

 _That's good news through and through. I should be happy._

 _But that's not the case. Because this win today cost me someone I called a true friend. It cost me someone I called a brother._

 _My Titan. BT-7274._

 _It doesn't matter to me that he was a machine, not human. BT was_ more _than just a machine. He could think. He could care. He didn't just do as his programming said. He was more than that._

 _He wanted to protect his pilot._

 _When his first, Tai Lastimosa, may he rest in peace, died in action, he transferred control of BT to me._

 _One of the first things BT told me was that he would not lose another pilot, because To him, his pilot wasn't just a component of the combat team. He ( or she, technically ) was a comrade in arms. That's someone you protect. Someone you put your life on the line for._

 _I believed that. And so did he. We both did that, many times indeed._

 _Fighting through IMC lines together, them on an SRS mission that certainly wasn't ours , we were a well oiled machine to a T. And that's not me boasting; he often noted that " Our combat rating " exceeded a high percent, 80, 85, 90._ _BT and I were in perfect sync._

 _We began to make a name for ourselves._

 _The IMC didn't like what we were up to, throwing a wrench in their plans. They sent everything they had against us, including a gang of real cutthroat mercenaries called the " Apex Predators ", riding in kitted out, top of the line Titans. They were led by a man named Kuben Blisk, a burly South African with a fondness for high paying jobs ( even for a merc ), and an aversion to the concept of heroism._

 _Not your average solider of fortune._

 _We managed to best each of his subordinates as we met them,though, and had the ( dis )pleasure of meeting him when we were caught in a crashing IMC battleship, with his goons hauling us from the wreckage in chains. Blisk wasn't hesitant about putting a round through my skull if BT didn't hand over the vital component to an WMD we'd stolen from being carried aboard that ship._

 _It was called the " Ark", and the weapon it was meant to fit into was called the " Fold ". It carried the power to annihilate an entire planet by warping the fabric of space and time, creating gargantuan energy rifts. It could burst one apart like a popping balloon, and the IMC intended to turn it on Harmony._

 _With stakes like that, some would argue that BT should've kept it sealed in his cockpit. Kept it out of the Apex's hands, at the expense of my life._

 _Instead, he complied. He wanted to save me._

 _In return, they shot him to death. I never wanted to leap up and fatally attack someone more than in that moment. It was just as well they had me tied down._

 _BT, though, was not quite gone. His AI personality and memory matrix, his " soul ", if you will, survived. Contained within his on board_ SERE _kit that I took with me, as I managed to make my escape once the mercs left us to finish installing the Ark._

 _By then, time was running out. Militia 9th Fleet Troops were heavily engaged in a last ditch effort to crack the IMC lines, Apex was getting close to activating the Fold, and I didn't have a Titan, though I definitely wasn't stopping on account of that. Fortunately, the SRS stepped in to help._

 _Commander Sarah Briggs dropped in a brand new Vanguard class Titan, " FS-1041 ", and one memory matrix swap later, FS-1041 became BT-7274._

 _My friend had returned. I was a happy man._

 _It was as if he hadn't left._

 _I re-boarded, and we continued the fight to reach the Fold, through the toughest IMC resistance to date. They rolled in every last grunt, Titan, and Reaper they had to try and stop were under attack from nearly every side, and the incoming was intense to the point were I was searching nonstop for Titan batteries to keep BT functioning. It was the most intense action I've ever fought in, even more than the clash at Demeter. I wasn't about to let them stop us, though. Not with the world of Harmony and everyone on it at stake._

 _Finally, though, we made it. We reached the Fold weapon, and with it, Blisk himself. He'd just installed the Ark, and he wasn't alone: His XO, Sloane, was there too, and they both seemed bemused that the " hero " was still coming at them._

 _Blisk decided to let Sloane handle me herself, and left at once. Even one on one, though, it was far from an easy fight. Slone, with her streets British accent, and laser armed Titan, fought better than any of the Apex Predators. None of them ever came closer to taking us down than her damn plasma shots._

 _Somehow, though, we withstood it. With Sloane dead, we moved to disassemble the Ark. Unfortunately, as we tried to remove it from its mounting, it left loose an energy wave that threw BT to the deck, and left us lying there unable to move. The cockpit wouldn't open, and all I could do was stare outside, as Blisk returned._

 _He had us dead to rights. With his Titan, a LEGION class armed with a high powered 30mm chaingun, he could've ended us right then and then with 0 effort. It wouldn't have surprised me: we had just killed his whole team ( as much as they may have deserved it ). There wasn't a better chance for him to take his revenge._

 _Yet, he didn't._

 _Instead, he disembarked from his Titan, and with a self satisfied smirk, stood atop mine. " You've earned this, eh. ", he said, slapping an Apex Predator shoulder patch upon our armor._

 _Offering me a place in his unit, rather than finishing me off. To say that was a shock would be the understatement of the century. He did at least explain why, as he re boarded his Titan and left, this time for good, as the IMC general who'd paid him ( a fellow called ' Marder ' ) that taking me out wasn't in his contract._

 _Ultimately_ _, maybe he was indeed a true merc._

 _Despite his charitable act, though, as we finally got online again and stood, albeit shakily, were still up the river. Removing the Ark by force hadn't worked by force hadn't worked, and the Fold was minutes away from activating. Minutes away from killing the 40 million citizens of Harmony._

 _That was nearly too much to mentally handle. It was as if the moon we stood on was standing on me instead. Fortunately, BT had a plan._

 _He was in a terrible state from what the Ark had done, but he still managed to come up with one: We would climb inside the nearby Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, and use it to launch ourselves into the Fold itself, relying on BT's reactor to set of a chain explosion that would annihilate the Fold as we impacted._

 _Needless to say, it would kill both of us. Don't think for a second I wasn't afraid; I was actually utterly terrified. Yet,w_ _hen I thought about those 40 million on Harmony, anything less than BT's plan didn't seem like an option. We had to do this. For them._

 _At least, that's what I tell myself. Why was I was truly willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in that moment ? For Harmony ? To stick it to the IMC ? Or neither ?_

 _Seconds later, as we were hurtling through the air out of the MAC's barrel, I received my answer. With seconds before hitting, and with me simultaneously not ready to die, and yet willing to face it, BT_ pulled me from the cockpit.

 _I screamed at him. " What are you doing ! ? "_

 _He replied, with utter calm ever for an AI: " Trust me. "_

 _And with that, I found myself hurtling high and away, in the midst of the gargantuan crater and swirling energy fields of the Fold. BT hurtled too, right into its center._

 _In those last few seconds, I could only watch._

 _With a tremendous flash and boom of light, he was gone._

 _Forever._

* * *

 _There is much I have not told you, even now._

 _That may seem odd. It seems like the whole story is right there. But, truthfully, I can't put fully into words._

 _Its not as though I never bonded with fellow riflemen, during my tenure with them. I did. I made friends. Let it never be said I didn't care for my squad like they were family, because they were, and I pray they're alright._

 _But, BT was different._

 _Reiterating that he was manufactured for one purpose. He wasn't designed, as a Titan, to be someone's friend. That's not what Titans are for, at their nature. They're built for combat, to fight and defend the infantry. You don't get yourself a Titan to make friends with it._

 _Now, though, its clear to me that friends is exactly what happens between a Titan, and a true pilot._

 _If Lastimosa taught me anything, even in his last moments, its that your Titan is your brother, and_ _BT, you're still mine._


End file.
